Annotated bibliography of Vietnam War film criticism

M

[Americans cannot readily distinguish between the imaginary Vietnam created
by Hollywood and the real place. Hollywood has failed to present Vietnam as
a real place and the Vietnamese as human beings. The Vietnamese are presented
either as stereotypical enemies or victims]

["Reflecting the visceral frustration of the American people over the
conflict that no one wanted, the American cinema is sitting this one out.".
Discusses The Green berets, Loin de Vietnam, Vivre pour vivre,
and a Samuel Fuller project called "The rifle"]

Malo, Jean-Jacques. Apocalypse in Vietnam : a selected critical filmography
of the war in Southeast Asia Thesis (M.A.)--Universite de Nantes (1992)

[Chiefly brief descriptions and analyses of 23 films later published in Vietnam
War films]

[Analyzes the evolution of depictions of women in Vietnamese and American
dramatic films and television programs of the Vietnam wars. Vietnamese films
developed from simplistic propaganda to more social realism in their depictions
of women. American films went through a similar evolution in female images,
from marginal characters to amazon warriors. Bibliographical references. In
French]

______________. From Saigon to Paris : French cinema and the Vietnam Wars
1992.

[Unpublished paper read at the Popular Culture Association annual meeting,
Louisville, March 1992]

______________. Vietnam War filmography : a critical overview and a continuing
search for the genre 1991.

[Unpublished paper read at the Popular Culture Association annual meeting,
San Antonio, March 1991]

______________. (see also under Vietnam War feature filmography and Vietnam
War films)

[Examines the depiction of Asians in McCabe and Mrs. Miller, Chinatown
and The Deer hunter, three films which offer a critique of the dominant
ideology and its handmaiden, the classical Hollywood paradigm. Finds that while
the latter two films demythologize the dominant ideology, The Deer hunter
uses classic Asian stereotypes. Bibliographical references]

Martin, Andrew. Critical approaches to American cultural studies : the
Vietnam War in history, literature, and film Thesis (Ph.D.)--University
of Iowa, 1987. (217 leaves)

[Argues that the Vietnam War is a cultural crisis that continues to permeate
American life and analyzes how popular culture has attempted to resolve what
the American military and political system could not. The fourth and fifth chapters
of the the thesis describe Hollywood's attempts to represent the war in films
from the 1960s thru the 1980s. Concludes with the argument that the most recent
representations of the war, especially on television, do not merely reflect
the dominant ideology but provide symbolic resolutions to real social and political
problems. Bibliographical references]

[Revision of thesis. Cinematic representations of the war have molded contemporary
understanding of the Vietnam War. Chapter 4, "Vietnam in Hollywood,"
discusses eight major films. Chapter 5, "Melodramatic excess: The body
in/of the text," examines the television series China Beach and
Tour of duty. Bibliographical references and index]

[American cinema's current concentration on the contentious aspects of the
1960s and 1970s away from the battlefield in Vietnam comparing 1969,
and Running on empty with the earlier Return of the Secaucis 7,
and The big chill]

Maxwell, Richard. "Film: Military movies and the contradictions of American
culture: The crazed war veteran has transcended his ideological origins and
become a film staple" Cressett 44/9 (1981), p. 24-6.

[How the outcast war veteran appeals to both left and right and has been used
in films like Escape from New York, Breaker Morant, and Cutter's
way]

McAdams, Frank. “Vietnam: The emerging counterculture” and “The
Vietnam era: A campus in O-hio” published as Chap. 7 and 8 in his The
American war film : history and Hollywood Westport, CT : Praeger, 2002.

[Vietnam had an impact on World War II films produced while it was in progress,
but aside from the Green Berets, the guilt and anger of the Vietnam experience
was not addressed directly in film until after the war was over. After the
Tet Offensive of 1968 Hollywood turned to producing counterculture films with
a subtle anti-war messages. After the fall of Saigon, the first low-budget
Vietnam combat films began to appear followed by a number of significant films
of the “first wave” in the late 1970s and the “second wave” of
film and television productions of the 1980s. War film chronology and bibliography]

[Describes varying portrayals of soldiers and veterans. Generally movies about
WWII and Korea portray veterans as dedicated and patriotic, but with few exceptions,
Hollywood has proven itself incapable of treating the Vietnam War and its veterans
fairly]

[Describes the first wave of Vietnam War films which began in the fall of
1977 with Heroes and concludes in 1979 with The deer hunter and
Apocalypse now]

Mechling, Elizabeth Walker and Mechling, Jay. "Vietnam and the second
American inner revolution" in Cultural legacies of Vietnam (p. 171-98)

[American involvement in Vietnam began and ended in a cultural era which the
authors describe as the "second inner revolution" which changed the
social structural context of the modern American personality, producing a "new
American individualism." Several films and television programs are cited
to illustrate the clash between the new individualism and the Vietnam War. Bibliographical
references]

Metcalf, Greg. "Discounting the '60s : Hollywood revisits the counterculture"
in Beyond the stars : studies in American popular film. Vol. 5. Themes and
ideologies in American popular film. Bowling Green, Ohio : Bowling Green
State Univ. Popular Press, 1996. (p. 265-280)

["The '60s' of post-1960s Hollywood film is a romantic and marginalized
period in American history. By focusing on individual relationships and family
strife and settling on a checklist of conventional signifiers of the era, Hollywood
films set in the '60s translate the social and political events of the day"
as background for coming-of-age stories. Post-1960s films feature images of
'60s leftovers as "the dropped-out, drugged-out and the sold out."
'60s people are characterized as naieve, irrelevant or ridiculous. Filmography
of 28 films]

[The Vietnam War has been described as America's first television war, however,
in the decade after the war, there was relatively little direct representation
of the war in popular mainstream film or television. This changed in 1986 with
the release of Platoon which initiated a five year period of intense
popular media representations and national discourse about the war. A general
view of the war developed during this period, with dominant and alternative
characteristics, which has been repeated and reproduced throughout American
culture since. Focusing on the 1986-91 period, the author analyzes the key representations
of the war, as well as their historical, political, economic and ideological
contexts. He draws conclusions from this analysis concerning the relationship
between popular media, society and culture. Bibliographical references]

Mills, Nicolaus. "Movies: Memories of the Vietnam War" Dissent
26/3 (1979), p. 334-7.
[Analysis of the first wave of Vietnam War films concentrating on Who'll
stop the rain, Coming home, and The Deer hunter]

Minton, Torri. "Why can't we get out of Vietnam. 20 movies depict the
war. 7,000 Nam books have been published. Nam is now a video, a comic book,
a beer mug. Next year, Nam will enter high school classrooms. A nation's morbid
fascinations and guilty pleasures" San Francisco chronicle (Apr
17, 1990), p. B3.

[Discusses the rising interest in the Vietnam War since the 1982 opening of
the Vietnam Veterans Memorial. Quotes a number of Vietnam War authors, scholars
and veterans and makes references to recent films]

[Uses The year of living dangerously, Under fire, The killing
fields, and Salvador to illustrate how texts are used as a site between
competing ideologies to influence meanings of the past in the preent for the
future. Shows how the films reflect changes in the national identity since the
Vietnam War using a rhetorical studies approach to studying popular culture
outlined by Barry Brummett. Bibliographical references]

Modleski, Tania. "A father is being beaten: Male feminism and the war
film" in her Feminism without women : culture and criticism in a "postfeminist"
age New York : Routledge, 1981. (p. 61-75)

[Captivity narratives, featuring white men rescuing white women held captive
by Indians, were a primary theme of nineteenth century dime novels and early
western films. With the decline of the western film, the captivity narrative's
racial and cultural conflicts have been restaged in South America, Vietnam,
and the streets of urban America. These films reveal post-war America's continuing
concern with the challenges which the civil rights movement and feminism pose
to the legitimacy of the white male hero. The author's Chapter Four argues that
Martin Scorcese's Taxi driver is a postmodern revision of the captivity
narrative. Chapter Five analyzes the pervasive use of the captivity plot in
Vietnam War films to recuperate the hero's narrative authority and rationalize
the American soldier's participation in the war. Bibliographical references]

[Contrasts World War II and Vietnam film treatments and analyzes the second
wave of Vietnam War films. In talking to veterans, the author realized "that
most Vietnam movies have been made for them." Rather than make the war
"come out better," Hollywood continues to turn out the same two stories
(terrified and confused men "mired in the grime and misery of a Vietnamese
jungle" or veterans "wandering aimlessly through contemporary America")
These sentimental treatments of soldier's experiences will never get the story
told]

[In the general context of American war films, finds the Vietnam films of
the 1980s were a new hybrid which synthesized war, western and catastrope films
into the MIA and POW sub-genres. Bibliographical references. In French]

[Examines the thematic functioning of American cinema, the ideological strategies
used in response to the Vietnam War, and the reactions the war aroused in cinema.
Bibliographical references. In French]

____________. “Paradigms of resistance: The ‘Vietvet’ from ‘Nam’ to
the American ‘jungle’” Cycnos 19/1 (2002), p. [145]-158.

[Analyzes depictions of Vietnam veterans in American films. The images show
resilience as veterans separated from society reconcile reality and nightmare
through therapy and suffering. Discusses the documentary Soldiers in hidingand the dramas Distant
thunder and Sons in detail. Bibliographical references]

[Describes 1980s filmmakers rejection of the Calley image of the American
male psyche run amok. First they portrayed Vietnam veterans as warrior-heroes
who became scapegoats thru no fault of their own. Finally with Rambo: First
blood, part II they avoided reality, romaticized the warrior, mythologized
warfare, and reestablished American soldiers as geopolitical giants. Bibliography]

____________. The land of Nam : the Vietnam War in American film Lanham,
Md. : Scarecrow, 1995.

[Revision of 1992 thesis. Bibliography and index]

____________. One epic narrative : the Vietnam War in American film 1948-90
Thesis (Ph.D)--State University of New York at Buffalo, 1992. (321 p.)

[Examines forces shaping Vietnam War film narratives during and after the
war. The lack of combat films during the war years limited Hollywood's treatment
of the war to allegories and stories about veterans and the protest movement.
After the war, the structure of the story became dependent on the soldier's
tour of duty and personal experience. Romance and wilderness themes from earlier
films were developed and Vietnam gradually became a romance landscape through
which soldiers traveled for their tour of duty. Using the veteran's experience
as a focal point simplified the war's complexities. The veteran's victory over
the jungle, the natives, the protestors and weak-willed leadership become America's
victory in Vietnam. Concludes with a study of the Rambo character, a symbol
of redemption for veterans and America and a reunion of the figures of warrior
and king from earlier war films. Filmography and bibliography]

____________. "Romance, power, and the Vietnam War : romantic triangles
in three Vietnam War films" Durham University journal 86/2 (July
1994), p. 307-13.

Mydans, Seth. "In Hanoi, an austere film diet: Disciplined by censors,
the Vietnamese do make movies, but they prefer pirated Western ones on video"
New York times (Sep. 1, 1996), sec. 2, p. 20.

[Describes the state of movie going in Vietnam and the distribution of American
films about the war there. Also describes Vietnamese films to be shown at the
Toronto Film Festival, and the official Vietnamese response to Cyclo]

[American cinema has the capacity to speak to political reality and integrate
this in its productions. Numerous films have been effected by the military and
political fiasco in South East Asia. Discusses a dozen such films made since
the end of the war. In French]

[Analysis largely based on Jeanine Basinger's study of war film from the 1940s
thru the 1970s (The World War II combat film : anatomy of a genre New York :
Columbia Univ. Press, 1986) with reference to other Vietnam War studies and
the argument over whether the Vietnam films constitute a genre of their own]

[Survey of documentaries, independent films, B-movies, and television films
on the Vietnam War. In Italian]

Newsinger, John. " 'Do you walk the walk?': Aspects of masculinity in
some Vietnam War films" in You Tarzan : masculinity, movies, and men
(edited by Pat Kirkham and Janet Thumim) New York : St. Martin's Press, 1992.
(p. 126-36)

[War films are tales of masculinity with themes of: boys becoming men, comradeship,
loyalty, bravery and endurance, pain and suffering, and the horror and excitement
of battle. But a number of popular films of the Vietnam War reveal a fractured
masculinity, a masculinity under pressure, or one that has been found inadequate.
Discusses Apocalypse now, Platoon, Full metal jacket, and
Casualties of war. Bibliographical references]

[Compares and contrasts American films of the second wave with the Vietnamese
films that toured the U.S. from 1987-on. Both tend to avoid political issues
and explore the effect of the war on individuals. They explore efforts to "forge
common bonds and a sense of solidarity (in the company of men for Hollywood
films, in the context of village and family for Vietnamese films)." Contrasts
the two film groups' treatment of women. American films use the exchange of
women as the basis of male bonding. Vietnamese films have a less gendered more
culturally determined sense of collectivity and women are more active and central
agents in these films]

[Brief notes on Vietnamese films shown at the festival with a general overview
of the state of Vietnamese film production. In French]

Nobile, Vincent. Political opposition in the age of mass media: G.I.'s
and veterans against the war in Vietnam. Thesis (Ph.D.)--University of California,
Irvine, 1987. (xv, 349 leaves)

[From the 1940s thru the 1960s the film industry, in conjunction with the
federal government, the military and other mass culture industries, produced
mass cultural objects whose messages constituted a code for war. They laud the
heroism of the warrior, the evilness of the enemy and the glory of war. In the
1960s, as many soldiers and veterans came to oppose the Vietnam War, they adapted
the symbols and objects of mass culture. This contributed to the deconstruction
of the mass cultural code for war. As the antiwar movement ended, American mass
culture reconstructed the code. By 1982 the film industry had re-established
the heroic warrior, the evil enemy and the glory of war. But the cycle of construction,
deconstruction and reconstruction suggests that mass media/culture is far more
contentious than had previously been believed. Vietnam War G.I. and veteran
resistance to the the war had a lasting effect on mass media/culture. Bibliography]

[Chiefly his Chap. 8 "High-tech heroics and other concerns" which
discusses a number of films with disabled Vietnam veteran characters. Bibliographical
references and index]

________________. "The disabled Vietnam veteran in Hollywood films"
Journal of popular film and television 13/1 (1985), p. 16-23.

[Places Hollywood treatment of disabled Vietnam vets in historical and cultural
context. Compares this with treatment of the subject in WWII films which show
more awareness than escapist Vietnam films. Bibliographical references]

[These films provide clear-cut distinctions between good and evil and easily
recognizable 'innocent' heroes. They meet the popular cultural needs created
by the Vietnam War and Watergate. Bibliographical references]

[Analyzes recent interest in Indochina by French writers and filmmakers including
the films Indochine, L'amant and Dien Bien Phu. Bibliographical references]

Novelli, Martin. "Hollywood and Vietnam: Images of Vietnam in American
film" in The Vietnam era (p. 107-24)

[John Wayne's World War II films helped form American expectations for Vietnam.
Vietnam continued as a Cold War fantasy in three periods of filmmaking about
the war: 1946 to 1968 (cold war and 'hawkish'); 1968-1978 (both pro- and anti-involvement);
and 1980-1990 (pro-involvement and neo-Cold War). Bibliographical references]

O

O'Brien, Margaret (see under Comber, Michael)

O'Brien, Tom. "Patriotism" Chap. 8 in his The screening of America
: movies and values from Rocky to Rain man New York : Continuum, 1990.

[An examination of films of the preceeding fifteen years that show the evolution
of American values. Of the 34 films discussed in this chapter, 23 have Vietnam
War connections. Many movies made since Vietnam question the American national
myth and the values placed on patriotism and heroism. Resurgent nationalism
is reflected in films of the late 1980s. Bibliographical references]

[Report on Vietnamese films shown at the festival of Pesaro in 1983. In Italian]

O'Nan, Stewart. "First wave of major films" and "Second wave
of major films" in Vietnam reader : the definitive collection of American
fiction and nonfiction on the war (edited by Stewart O'Nan) New York : Anchor
Books, 1998. (p. 257-77 and 439-56 respectively)

Osborne, Bob. Propaganda tool : the Hollywood war movie and its usurpation
by TV Carlisle Barracks, Pa. : U.S. Army War College, 1990.

[Examines how the dominant role of Hollywood as a propaganda machine for molding
public opinion during World War II was usurped by television after 1950. Unpopular
wars in Korea and Vietnam led Hollywood generally to avoid those wars as subjects
and Hollywood became heavily involved after Vietnam in anti-war themes. Bibliography]